Random Orbital Sander by Mirca

Knowing I will soon be deleted I thought I would post a review of the above sander.

If I could give it 10 stars I would. Bought it a year ago or more and have put several thousand miles on it, or maybe close to a 1,000 hours on it so I think my review is valid as it didn’t just fall out of the box. being a “Festool” junkie I had the chance top compare sanders and this is the one I chose with no regrets. It lists for around 500 Canadian funds (probably less in the mighty USA).

Being used to pneumatic sanders that require a tremendous amount of CFMs’ I was sceptical because I have never seen an electric sander do what an air driven sander can do. The differences in performance are night and day as the air sander is what professional auto body shops use as well as most cabinet shops. Most hobby shops would never own a compressor that can keep up to the demands of air tools, thus only short “spurts” come of it, which inevitably leads to the premature death of an under rated compressor and a useless expensive sander.

Thus the Mirka. Its electric and uses a separate box/transformer with a super long cord to the sander thus getting rid of the weight where the motor is held within the sanding device leaving you with a light weight sander. The constant “rattle” found in most electric palm sanders is gone. Nice and easy on the wrist and fingers. It has an electronic variable speed button on the sander so you can go from slow to high speeds quickly. Its also as true to “random orbits” as it gets, none of those nasty swirls left behind. Putting 40 grit paper on it it can quickly remove even chain saw kerf marks and I suppose, could disfigure wood quickly. But the steps in sanding go from a chore to a pleasure with 5 star results.

I think it comes with a choice for sticky pads or velcro, I chose velcro for reasons I wont get into so if you do go the route of velcro, get the bag of velcro spacers which greatly extend the life of the sanding disk (expensive to replace), they are cheap and work like a charm.

Also the pad has holes in it which match perfectly to the Mirca Abranet sandpaper (actually this sandpaper will work perfect for any similar sanding machine) and the sandpaper, albeit expensive, surely makes up for the price in longevity. With the sander attached to a vacuum via a hose, the sanding is almost dustless which I really like.

I love the design of having the weighty part sitting on the floor. Maybe I would sand things thoroughly in a single go with one of these, instead of having to take a break when I get a cramp in my hand. Adding this to my wish list.

Just checked: $495US at Amazon, so unlike so many things, there is no price advantage to being in the US for this product.

I played with this at Woodcraft the other day and it is amazing They have a display set up with a block of maple to sand on. Light, comfortable, and it sanded great..and with their vac attached the dust collection was 100%. I guess its a 12V motor in the sander so its smaller and lighter and the box is the 120V to 12V converter. With the matching vacuum its 1100 bucks….I guess you don’t have to buy their vacuum, but even at that price it might be worth it in the benefits you gain with the sander. If you’re like me and have a smaller pancake style compressor, and you want to go with the pneumatic palm sanders you would have to upgrade to a significantly larger compressor..thats at least 300-500 bucks. The sanders aren’t cheap either..at least 200-300 non Harbor freight. So now your almost at the cost of the whole setup with the vacuum..and it takes up less space and is less noisy than a huge compressor…and it all plugs into regular 110V power no special wiring needed.

I’m not a big Festool fan..they are really nice tools but way over priced…But even though this sander would be in that league of tools..sometimes spending the extra money really reaps rewards..

Thanks for the review, Moron, and it’s a really good one. I can’t quite justify the price as a handplaner (lol) but it’s no doubt a wonderful unit. I’ve got the Rotex and it really hasn’t changed my life like people said it would.

Brad, I like the pneumatic sanders too but my compressors in my shop and it’s as noisy as a jet. My quick disconnect fittings aren’t great and they leak a bit. As a result, the compressor will just kick on out of nowhere. It’s almost made me $hit my pants before:)

-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog